Hackathon/Laptop setup/OSX MediaWiki

From Wikimania 2012 • Washington, D.C., USA

Get MediaWiki via git

In a terminal, type these commands. This clones the latest development code on MediaWiki into your wiki directory.

   git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/p/mediawiki/core.git /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/wiki

This will take a while. As it downloads, introduce yourself to a neighbor!

Switch to a different branch of the code

Rather than run whatever is the latest code that has been added to the MediaWiki repository, we encourage you to run a released version of MediaWiki. To do that, run this in the terminal:

   cd /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/wiki
   git checkout origin/REL1_19 -b mywiki

This creates a branch called mywiki based on the MediaWiki 1.19 release, and switches you to that branch. (If that seems like gobbledygook, that is okay for now.)

Make a shortcut in your home directory

For convenience, if you have a directory where you usually put software development projects, you can create a "symbolic link" so that you can access the wiki from there. This makes the wiki code easier to find.

For example, if you normally store your work in a "projects" folder within your home directory, type these commands in a terminal.

First, switch back to your home directory with this command

   cd

Then, cd into your projects directory:

   cd projects

(If this complains that there is no such file or directory, run the following command: mkdir projects)

Finally, create the link:

   ln -s /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/wiki wiki

Now you can access the wiki via $HOME/projects/wiki/.

Set up the wiki

With the wiki code in place, now is a good time to perform an installation of the wiki. This step is the easiest.

  • Visit http://localhost:8888/wiki/ in a web browser.
  • Make sure a Continue button appears at the end. Click it!
  • The installer will ask you which Database type you want. Choose SQLite.
  • Choose whatever you want for the following options:
    • Name of wiki (Suggestion: "Mywiki")
    • Your name
    • Password
    • Password again
    • E-mail address
  • Check the box labeled "I'm bored already", then click Continue.
  • Click Continue once more, to install the wiki!
  • Click Continue yet once more, for some reason.
  • The web app will offer you a LocalSettings.php file. The browser will ask you where you want to save it. Navigate to /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/wiki and save the file there.

Make sure your wiki works

If all went well, now when you go to http://localhost:8888/wiki/ , you will see a friendly message that tells you:

MediaWiki has been successfully installed.

Congratulations! Log in with the username you just created to make sure it works.

If something did not work, do ask a staff member for help!

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